


biting bullets

by Damkianna



Category: Gunmen (1994)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Love Confessions, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23892241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: It was fine. They were doing good. He wasn't going to ruin it by deluding himself. They had a balance going, but it was delicate: he pretended like they were still going to leave, and Dani pretended to believe it. Poking holes in that, trying to make it real when it wasn't—that was just going to fuck it all up.And then Dani got taken.
Relationships: Cole Parker/Dani Servigo
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9
Collections: Id Pro Quo 2020





	biting bullets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [galerian_ash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galerian_ash/gifts).



> I can only hope you enjoy reading this, like, a quarter as much as I enjoyed writing it for you, galerian_ash—thank you for your truly spectacular selection of freeforms, and happy IPQ! ♥ The heart of this is "making a mistake and expecting to be punished for it, based on past experience", but there's also some heaping helpings of rescue, pining, injured characters being carried, and giving away feelings while not lucid. I JUST COULDN'T HELP MYSELF /o\

The nuns and the little girl were right where Dani had said they'd be. Not too far outside Boa Vista, as it turned out, except way on the other side of the city from the Crazy Ace.

Boa Vista was inland; they couldn't take the boat. They were better off leaving it behind anyway, and finding somewhere else to keep the money, because the only thing anybody knew for sure about Loomis's stash was that it had been on a boat.

It had given Cole kind of a pang, leaving it behind. But it didn't matter where the boat was—he got to keep the memory of that morning, limping along through the marina with Dani, and the moment his eyes had fallen on the _Gunmen_ , the moment he'd known they'd actually fucking pulled it off after all. He didn't need the boat for that.

They'd argued for a good ten minutes about what they were doing next, and then Dani had gone off in a huff and come back after half an hour, beaming, in the front seat of an enormous Jeep.

"... I'm not even going to ask," Cole had said.

"Good," Dani had said, grinning at him, "because you definitely don't want to know."

And then they'd loaded up all those shitty straw-packed crates in the back, and they'd started the drive to Boa Vista.

Dani had bitched and moaned the whole way there, of course. He tried like five different angles. How it was _their_ money and he didn't want to deprive Cole of his share ("That's why this is coming out of your half, my friend," Cole had told him peaceably). How it was evidence, how they ought to turn it in to the DEA ("Sure, yeah," Cole had said, "so they can put Loomis on trial—oh, wait, he's dead!"). How having that kind of cash on you made you a target ("So shouldn't you be glad to get some of the heat off _us_ by giving a bunch of it away?" Cole had asked innocently).

But once they actually got there and were standing outside—he was different, then.

There were nuns all over, but no little girl. So maybe that part had been bullshit, Cole thought, and there was no good reason that should sting, that Dani might have lied about that.

But then Dani swung himself down out of the passenger side and into the street. He stood there awkwardly for a second, just looking at the place, biting his lip. And then he whistled.

Quick, sharp. Just two notes, that basic "come here" whistle everybody knew when they heard it.

He waited a minute, and then did it again. And about fifteen seconds after that, suddenly there was somebody moving, running toward him—pushing her way through the front gate, going so fast she was almost tripping, throwing herself at Dani.

"Whoa," Dani said, and caught her, staggering back a half step. And then his whole face changed, went soft, and he curved a hand carefully around the back of the girl's head and murmured, "Hey, kid."

She didn't say anything back. But Dani didn't seem to mind. She clutched at his shirt and blinked at him with big eyes; and after a second he smiled at her, and picked her up.

Cole swallowed, and made himself look away, and swung out of the Jeep himself so he could go grab some crates out of the back.

Dani had insisted on marking them—had made Cole teach him what "D" looked like, too, so he could spend like three days carving messy ones into the slats of exactly half the crates. "Our money, yeah," he'd said. "Which means half of it is _my_ money."

But Cole didn't bother looking at them, didn't check which ones he was grabbing. He just stacked up as many as he could carry at once, and lifted them out.

It was their money; and they were giving some of it to a bunch of nuns and a little girl. End of story.

The nuns were pretty thrilled. Most of them, anyway. One of the older ones, gray-haired, glasses, was giving Cole and Dani kind of a gimlet-eyed look—Cole figured she had some kind of guess as to where this money was from, or at least that it hadn't come from doing good works in the Lord's name. But, hell, that was the point, right? Take it from Loomis, who'd been making it off pain and desperation, hand over fist, and give it to somebody who'd use it to help people instead.

It had already been late in the afternoon when they showed up, the light going all hazy and gold. The kid didn't seem to want to let go of Dani, and Dani wasn't setting her down, either; and then he started chatting with some of the nuns in Portuguese or something. Cole only knew enough to ask for directions or tell people he was going to kill them—he'd mostly limped by on Spanish instead, down here.

The point was, even the cranky nun who didn't like them didn't seem pissed that they ended up staying for supper. And the nuns weren't about to turn them out on the street to look for somewhere to sleep, either.

Dani didn't seem inclined to protest. He just smiled that big smile, and hitched the girl up a little more comfortably on his hip.

It seemed kind of backwards to Cole. They were giving the nuns money so the nuns could use it for _other_ people—people who didn't have forty more crates of it stacked up in the back of their Jeep.

But the cranky nun wasn't having any of it. She listened to him patiently enough; and then she pursed her lips and stared down her nose at him, which was a neat trick considering she was about eight inches shorter than him. "There is nowhere good to sleep," she said, using up what seemed to be most of the English she knew. "This side of the city, it is all shit."

Cole blinked.

"Shit," she repeated, like she thought maybe he hadn't heard. "You stay here."

So—they stayed.

It wasn't until later, lying side-by-side in the dark on two of the creaky twin beds packed into the infirmary-slash-public-lodging-room the convent had set aside, that Dani finally told him anything for real.

"She's Guzman's kid," was what Dani said, barely over a whisper, almost invisible in the dark.

And sure, Guzman, Cole thought, half-asleep. He remembered that name from the files on Loomis. The chief had wanted to watch Guzman, for a while there, except he didn't have enough guys to pull it off; just one of the many ways he'd been hamstrung trying to take down Loomis. Still, the chief had sent somebody to take a quick look around the place every now and then. That was how they'd found out—

Cole's breath caught in the back of his throat, then, and all at once he was wide awake, staring up at the dim angles and shadows of the corner of the ceiling.

— _cut to shreds in a burlap sack out at Guzman's beach house._

One of the last things Chief Chavez had ever said to Cole. Dani had been half a dozen feet away, tops.

And two minutes later, Cole had found his empty handcuff left swinging in the breeze, and he hadn't seen Dani again until his stakeout of that bar with the very friendly women upstairs had finally paid off.

The chief hadn't said anything one way or another about Guzman. But if Karl Servigo's dead body had shown up there—Guzman hadn't done that, no way. He was an accountant, a numbers guy, not an enforcer. He was no Armor O'Malley.

Which meant somebody had been trying to make a point, and it hadn't been Guzman. So maybe the better way to say it was: Guzman had been an accountant. But he hadn't known where the boat was any more than Cole had, and that probably hadn't been the answer whoever had dragged Karl Servigo there in a sack had been looking for.

And Dani knew Guzman's daughter. Dani knew Guzman's daughter, and she knew him, and how the hell had she gotten all the way to this convent from Guzman's beach house, anyhow?

"There was nobody left," Dani was saying, after a pause, and Cole swallowed and let his eyes fall shut. "I didn't know where else to take her."

Jesus.

Dani had gone there for Karl's body. To say goodbye. And the kid—

Cole bit his lip, and hoped distantly she at least hadn't been out there on that beach to watch Guzman die.

That kind of shit could screw you up inside for a long, long time.

He sucked in a breath, and cleared his throat a little. "You did good," he said aloud, keeping his voice low like Dani had. "That was good, Dani. You did the right thing. She'll be okay."

And maybe it was true or maybe it wasn't. But Dani blew out a breath and relaxed next to Cole like he believed it.

"Yeah," he said. "Okay," and Cole closed his eyes and listened to Dani breathe until they were both asleep.

In the morning, Dani was weird.

It took a little time for it to be obvious. At first Cole just figured it was about the nuns and the kid, about Dani remembering Guzman's beach house. About Karl's body in a burlap sack—because Cole was as sure as he needed to be that Karl Servigo had been an asshole Dani was better off without, but Dani had loved his brother anyway.

Dani hugged the girl for a long time, hand spread out gently across her narrow shoulders, eyes closed. And then they said goodbye to the nuns, and even the cranky one looked like she wasn't happy to see them go, although that was also kind of how her face looked in general.

But even after they swung themselves back into the Jeep and drove off, back out to the edge of Boa Vista, Dani was weird.

Cole didn't make a big thing out of it. He knew better, by now. When he asked Dani about stuff, or he noticed stuff about Dani—that was when Dani got defensive, or started spinning out bullshit. That was when Cole got nothing but a shuttered face, or shouting; that was when he got _I knew you were faking it_ and _Lots of famous people can't read_.

He waited it out instead. They needed some supplies anyway. Bottled water, that kind of thing. He spotted a convenience store a little way outside the city, quiet and run-down in that way that said nobody who saw you in there was going to look too hard at you or volunteer themselves to answer a lot of questions if the police came around. He stopped, and left Dani in the Jeep with the keys, and he went in and ignored the way his heart pounded.

Because there was one really big thing he could imagine Dani being weird about, and he almost didn't want to know—

But when he came back out, the Jeep was still there. Dani didn't even seem to have noticed the keys; he was still sitting just like he had been, arms crossed, curled in on himself a little even though it was already starting to get hot.

"Hey," Cole said.

And Dani swallowed and looked away from him, squinted out the windshield instead, and said, "So, uh. That fund for kids on the street next, huh?"

Cole watched him for a second. Dani bore it, and still didn't look over.

Because that question was a joke, except it was also about five other questions that weren't jokes at all. That was Dani asking what they were going to do next, and whether they were going to do it together, and where it would happen—because Cole hadn't said he was planning to start up that fund in New York, not quite, but that was kind of the obvious conclusion.

And going back to the States was—Dani didn't have ID or papers. Dani didn't have anything. It was going to be hard, except there was one really, really straightforward way to make it easy.

Because Dani was a criminal; and Cole was a bounty hunter.

Cole hadn't even been thinking about it. He'd been worried Dani might take the Jeep and ditch him just for all the ordinary reasons Dani had to do it. But that was an even better reason than most, a seriously compelling one.

And Dani had stayed here and waited for him anyway.

Damn.

"Well, I don't know," Cole said aloud, and hopped up into the driver's side, casual as anything. "You got plans?"

Dani glanced at him, quick, and then away again, and shrugged one shoulder. "I mean, as plans go," he said, "'get away with all the money and don't die' has been working out really great for me so far. I feel like I should stick with that one."

Cole laughed. "Yeah," he said. "See, the thing is, I'm not DEA, but I've been working with Chavez a while now. They got records on me; they know what I was doing down here. And if I show up back in New York out of the blue, they're going to notice sooner or later, and they're going to have a lot of questions about Loomis's money. Probably going to want to seize it, even with Loomis out of the picture, since that was technically a DEA investigation I was working.

"They still have to pay me, and I bet that'll land me a cut, but." He made a considering face. "Better get my story figured out, right? Better decide what to tell them about Rance. Making the travel arrangements from here might not be that easy; a little of that money gets spent before they get it, well, what are they going to do about it?" He paused for a beat. "Plus, you know, I think I get a little recovery time, here. Since some jackass shot me in the leg."

And that made Dani look at him for real—look at him for real, briefly uncertain, eyes wide, and then flash that smile like the sun coming up.

"So I'm feeling like it might be a couple more weeks before I've got my shit together," Cole concluded. "How about you?"

"Sure," Dani said. "That works for me." He glanced down, and then leaned over, hand to his mouth like it was a secret: "Some jackass shot me in the leg, too. How about that?"

"Well, now, that's a hell of a coincidence," Cole told him, grinning, and then started the Jeep's engine with a rumble.

A couple of weeks could last just about as long as you wanted it to, Cole was pleased to discover.

He kept up appearances. Every time the end of "a couple weeks" was closing in on them, he found a minute to say something about it to Dani, offhand, easy. He found a new reason, a new excuse. They were still going back to the States sooner or later. Of course they were. But until they did, might as well take the time to make sure they had their shit in order, had things settled here.

They needed somewhere to stay, those first couple weeks. Didn't want to go to the hassle of renting by the day, did they? Too much work, drew too much attention—and the cranky nun had been right anyway, everywhere on the outskirts of this side of Boa Vista was pretty shit.

So they found a bungalow a little further away, almost in the jungle. Lady who owned the place needed some extra cash, and didn't much care what they did with it as long as they paid up on time.

That worked for every third or fourth "couple weeks": couldn't just leave Ana in the lurch, could they? Couldn't just skip out without paying what they owed her, and as long as they were out the cost for the rest of the month, they might as well stay and get what they were paying for.

And people heard about them, because of course they did. Made Cole nervous, to start out, because he didn't like to think about anybody who'd been acquainted with Karl Servigo sniffing around Dani—but the first time a couple guys showed up on their doorstep looking for them, it was about protection: hoping the shadow of Karl Servigo might be enough to scare off the gang shaking them down.

They still had a shitload of money. They didn't need the payday. But both their legs were healed up by then, and they still had some guns; and they knew where to get more, too, since Bennett had cleared out and left her stock behind.

Turned out they did make an okay team, just like Dani had always said they would.

So it became kind of a thing, after that. People who needed help, who didn't have anybody else to ask, came to them. And obviously they weren't going to leave the country right in the middle of a job, were they?

It was bullshit. Dani had to know it was bullshit.

But he never argued. He just looked at Cole for a minute, and then smiled that big bright smile, every time.

Cole still thought about it now and then. He missed New York, no denying it. He'd like to go back sometime, even if it was only for a little while; even if it was only to see it again.

Except if he took Dani with him, Dani was definitely going to get arrested. End up in prison all over again, and this time Cole wouldn't be able to blow a hole in the wall and drive off with him. And if he didn't—

He could pull it off, probably. Lie. Say that Dani had gotten away, that Dani had died. That there was no point looking for him. Who was going to call him on it? And all he'd have to do to make it work was leave Dani behind.

Yeah. Right.

So obviously that was off the table, too.

He didn't like to spend too much time on it. He didn't like to look at it too close. He didn't even know why it had started to feel like such a huge fucking deal—why he couldn't tell Dani any of that stuff, why he felt queasy just thinking about trying. It was almost too much just offering up a new excuse each time "a couple weeks" came around; he felt weirder and weirder about it, transparent, obvious, sweating over the thought that one of these days Dani was going to call him on it, and ask him who the fuck he thought he was kidding.

He thought about that night in the jungle, sometimes. About Dani's arm around him, Dani's body pressed up all along his back. Dani's face, leaning in close. About hiding in that room, upstairs from the bar—lying there and watching that woman ride Dani like she got paid by the decibel, and being nothing but kind of amused.

It had felt so fucking easy, back then. It hadn't meant anything to Cole, not yet, and that had made it so fucking easy.

He thought about Dani screaming for him in the water, too. Screaming for him, pleading, promising whatever power he thought might be listening that he didn't care about the money. _Make him come back. Please—_

Every now and then, he had himself half convinced. Lying in the dark in their bungalow, listening to Dani breathe, it almost felt possible.

But in the cold light of day, well. Cole could gun down drug dealers and blow up boats and throw himself off cliffs, but that didn't mean he wasn't still a chickenshit sometimes.

It was fine. They were doing good. He wasn't going to ruin it by deluding himself. They had a balance going, but it was delicate: he pretended like they were still going to leave, and Dani pretended to believe it. Poking holes in that, trying to make it real when it wasn't—that was just going to fuck it all up.

And then Dani got taken.

* * *

They'd split up, which they did sometimes. Just to scope the place out, so they could decide on the best approach. This woman Ana knew had had her son kidnapped, by these guys he'd apparently made himself a nuisance to one too many times, and they wanted money—more than the lady had to give. Cole and Dani could have paid it for her, about a hundred times over and then some, but on principle it seemed like a bad idea to reward shitty behavior. Swooping in and getting the guy out of there, leaving them empty-handed and maybe shooting a few of them on the way, was going to be a lot more satisfying. All in the name of justice, obviously.

After the last time they'd had to do this kind of thing, no way to stay in each other's line of sight, Cole had gotten them a couple radios. Tiny shitty ones you had to shake when they cut out on you, but they worked okay overall.

It had been just Dani's breathing, for a couple minutes. Which was fine with Cole; he was trying to work his way around the back without making too much noise, and he had the radio clipped to his shirt collar, volume almost all the way down—which somehow was only making it sound more like Dani was right at his shoulder, breathing against the nape of his neck.

He was maybe having a little bit of trouble concentrating.

And then, so sudden Cole almost bit his lip in surprise, Dani said, "Shit! Oh, _shit_ —"

"Dani," Cole said, but he kept it as quiet as he could, which meant it was just about drowned out by the wave of noise coming from Dani's end: crashing, crackling, and Cole couldn't tell how much of it was static until a sharp awful _snap_ came through loud and clear—and a soft hurt sound that was Dani, trying not to shout.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck—

"—was that?" Cole heard over the radio, distant, barely audible; Spanish, not Portuguese. Which fit, because Ana had said these particular shitheads weren't Brazilian. Muscling in over the border from Venezuela, apparently. And then, closer, maybe a different guy: "What do we have here?"

Dani laughed, over the radio, that strung-out way he laughed when everything had gone to hell, and Cole's chest clenched tight. One gunshot, another. A smattering, like a machine gun—which was to say, very definitely _not_ Dani and his handgun—and Cole could hear it echoed, doubled, over the radio and with his own ears. Shouting, more gunfire.

Nothing good, Cole thought, heart pounding.

On the upside, the one guy he'd spotted around back was already turning, moving curiously toward the ruckus, and that meant there was nobody left to see Cole coming.

Which was just how he liked it.

In the end, it was all pretty straightforward. He didn't have to get washed down any rapids, or throw himself out of any helicopters.

He choked a couple guys out; he discovered, distantly, that he'd rather have shot them, except he didn't have a silencer, and if he got caught in this fucking compound before he found Dani, they were both screwed.

He ended up finding the kid first—not on purpose, exactly. He was just looking for wherever it was they might have decided to stash Dani. There were makeshift cells in the basement, metal bars sunk into the stone. And Dani wasn't down there, but Ana's friend's kid was.

He wasn't a _kid_ kid. Nineteen, twenty: just old enough to make stupid decisions and piss off drug runners all on his own, like a big boy.

But he was conscious, and he could stand up. Aware enough to introduce himself as Henrique and stick to English when he realized Cole needed him to, and had it together enough to help Cole yank a bar loose. He'd already been working on it, where the stone had cracked at the base, but he hadn't been strong enough to bust it the rest of the way on his own.

"Listen," Cole said, helping him eel his way through the gap. "You seen anybody else? They bring anybody else down here today?"

"What? No," Henrique said, breathless, wincing, ribs pinched against the remaining bars. "No, nobody. Why?"

"You aren't the only one they got their hands on," Cole said grimly, "and we aren't leaving without him."

Lucky for Cole Henrique was still young enough and dumb enough to be all fired up about it, same righteous fury over what these guys were doing to his hometown that had landed him on their radar and in the middle of this mess in the first place. The sensible thing to do would have been to insist that Cole get him the hell out of dodge. But he didn't even blink.

And he'd been telling the truth. Dani wasn't down there, not even all the way at the other end of the basement, which seemed to go the whole way under the compound.

He was upstairs.

It took them maybe forty minutes to find Dani.

Forty minutes too long.

Because upstairs—upstairs meant he was right in the middle of the compound. Upstairs meant he was getting some personal attention: these assholes trying to figure out who he was, why he was there, seeing whether they could dig some answers out from under his skin.

And by the time Cole and Henrique found the right room, they'd dug pretty goddamn deep.

Nobody knew they were coming for Dani. That part was satisfying. Cole kicked the double doors open, and everybody in the room who was still standing turned around at once, startled—six guys, and he caught the number in a single glance, feeling like a live wire, like he'd just left Special Forces yesterday.

He shot two of them, winged a third, before they were even done pulling their own guns.

And then they were done, and they were shooting back at him. He flung himself down, skidded a little way across the floor and kicked a fourth guy's legs out from under him, shoved him down and shot him in the head. Took the guy's gun and slid it back across the floor toward Henrique, who was doing like Cole had told him and staying in the hallway, using the doorframe for cover.

Two guys left, plus the guy Cole had shot in the shoulder, who was down on the ground and shrieking about it, blood already starting to pool and smear where he'd flailed in it. Henrique had distracted one of them with what probably hadn't been intended as cover fire—Cole would bet Henrique was trying to hit him, and just couldn't do it on two or three days without food, beaten and locked in a cold basement.

But hey, A for effort, and it was working, keeping that one busy and off Cole's back. Cole went straight for the other one—felt a crease open up, sharp fire along the line of his arm, but he didn't flinch and his own shot stayed true, caught the guy in the hip and knocked him back into the wall. Swung his gun around in his hands, because he'd closed enough for a nice solid pistol-whip across the face, and oh, look, a window: the guy's head slammed down into the sill from the force of Cole's blow, and Cole ducked down and caught his legs, lifted, tipped him out and let him fall.

The last one was still shooting at Henrique, swearing at him viciously; he wasn't even looking at Cole, which took some of the fun out of it. Cole drew a breath, took his time, aimed—fired just once, clean, and the guy choked on air and stumbled back, hit the wall and slid down and was dead by the time he'd toppled sideways onto the floor.

That was it, except for the one Cole had shot in the shoulder, still whimpering away. Except for him, and Dani.

"Dani," Cole heard himself say, and it sounded weird, strained, hoarse. He was going to be careful not to say it again, he decided dimly, which made it a distant surprise when he did it anyway. " _Dani_ —"

Dani was on the floor. Cole hadn't looked at him before this, not except to see that it was really Dani. He couldn't have, while there were still bad guys left to shoot. It would have knocked everything out of his head except for Dani.

But now he had to. He had to. He took one stride, two, and dropped to his knees, bit at his mouth, because—shit.

Dani's arm was broken, visibly, obviously; just lying wrong, though, nothing coming through the skin. In a way, his face looked worse than his arm: his lips were split, and the skin over one brow, his nose, his cheekbone. He was bleeding, steady, because wounds to the head always bled like hell, and bruises were just starting to come up dark around the worst of it.

And then they'd switched gears, and gone for his feet.

Nothing looked broken, not as far as Cole could tell. They'd just wanted to make sure he couldn't run. They'd used something thin, a narrow switch or—or maybe wire, something like that. Something that didn't just welt up, but _cut_ , long bloody lines layered over each other across the soles, what was left between red and swollen and hot.

"God," Henrique said, hushed, from the doorway.

And then Dani shifted a little, and made a sound in the back of his throat, and one puffy eye fluttered halfway open.

Cole jerked into motion, went to touch his face and then yanked his hand back, because jesus, there was nowhere he was going to be able to put it that wasn't going to hurt like hell. "Hey," he said softly. "Hey, Dani."

Dani let his eye fall shut again, made as if to wet his lips and then flinched at the touch of his own tongue against one of the bloody splits in them. "Cole," he said, except it was more a whisper than anything, rasping through a dry throat.

"Hey, partner," Cole said, gentle, and reached for the arm that wasn't broken.

"Cole," Dani said again. "I fell."

"Yeah, I think I heard that part," Cole said. "But you're going to be okay now. All right? I've got you."

"I fell," and on the one hand it might be bad that Dani was repeating himself, but on the other hand it had to be good that he was conscious, that those motherfuckers probably hadn't given him real brain damage; that he'd recognized Cole, that he was talking at all.

"You sure did," Cole said, as soothing as he could manage. "Okay, get ready, because this is probably going to hurt," and then he moved before Dani really had a chance to tense up—drew Dani's unbroken arm up around his shoulders, smooth as he could, and got his own under Dani's back.

He had to reach for the other one, too. He couldn't just leave it to dangle; that would probably hurt it worse. But Dani cried out, hissed a sob between his teeth, as Cole lifted his broken arm to curl it over his chest, and Cole wanted to cut his own hands off for having used them to make Dani make a noise like that.

"Jesus," Henrique said from the doorway, biting his lip. "You need help?"

"I got him," Cole said, probably more sharply than he should have. "Watch the door."

The arm was up, as secure as it was going to get. But this part was probably going to hurt almost as much. Cole sucked in a breath and moved, hooked his arm under Dani's knees and rose to his own at the same time, so the soles of Dani's feet wouldn't brush the floor.

But Dani sobbed again anyway, harsh, half-muffled, face twisted into Cole's shoulder.

"Oh, god," he said into Cole's shirt. "Oh, god—"

"Shh," Cole said. "I got you. You're going to be okay. All right? You're going to be okay."

"Cole," Dani said, breathless, wretched. "Cole."

"That's me," Cole said, and stood, and carried him out.

It took a little less time to get back to where they'd left the Jeep than it had to get into the compound.

A little. Mostly because they were going downhill this way.

Dani wasn't heavy. Not to Cole, not like this. But Cole felt doubly—triply—conscious of everywhere he was putting his feet, of how sure he had to be that he wouldn't trip or stumble; the last thing Dani needed right now was to get dumped on the ground.

That awareness extended to everything. It all took on an almost photo-sharp quality: the hot sun, the vaguely damp grass underfoot, the way Cole's shirt was sticking to his back as he sweated. Dani's weight, and warmth, and the way he was clinging to Cole with his good arm, the way his fingers were twisting weakly into Cole's collar at the nape of Cole's neck.

Henrique was leading the way, which was fine because Cole was pretty sure there were no more bad guys left between them and the Jeep. There was nothing left to do but walk. Walk, and hold onto Dani.

Cole became aware, somewhere along the way, that Dani was still talking. In snatches, really, barely even whole sentences; murmuring, hardly audible, into Cole's shoulder.

Cole carried him, and made soothing noises, and walked. He wasn't actually listening to Dani. He couldn't. There wasn't room in his head for it.

And then, it felt like suddenly, they were at the Jeep. Henrique was fumbling with the door handles, jerking one open—Cole went straight for the back seat, hefting Dani carefully higher to lift him inside, wincing reflexively every time Dani shook or flinched or swallowed down a half-formed sound.

"Shh," he said, "shh, it's okay. Just hang on. Just hang on, all right?"

"Cole—"

"Hang on," Cole repeated, and fumbled under the seat for the first aid kit. It had been funny, when they'd bought it—Cole had been the one to get it, on a whim, and he'd brought it home and tossed it to Dani, and laughed at the look on Dani's face when he'd realized what it was: deer in the headlights, like he thought it was a warning Cole was about to shoot him in the leg again.

It didn't seem very funny anymore.

"Keys are in the ignition," he added, to Henrique. "Get us out of here."

Henrique must've listened to him; maybe even answered. Cole wasn't sure. He half-felt the Jeep rumble to life beneath them, but it was like the whole world had narrowed down to Dani's bruised, bleeding face, Dani's broken arm lying there slack and trembling, Dani's raw torn-up feet.

Cole clutched the first aid kit, and for a long second was stupidly frozen, caught between competing impulses. Set the arm? Bandage the face? Or—the feet, the feet needed to be cleaned—

"Cole," Dani gasped.

"Hush," Cole said, automatic, the way he'd been saying it since they'd first staggered out of the compound.

Except this time—this time, there was nothing else to worry about but Dani. He didn't have to focus on placing his feet, on holding Dani against him so Dani's arm wasn't jostled. This time, there was enough room in his head to actually hear what Dani was saying.

And Dani was saying, "Sorry. Sorry—"

"Dani," Cole said blankly.

"—sorry, I didn't—I—I made a mistake."

"Dani, what—?"

"I won't do it again," Dani slurred, hoarse, desperate, clutching at Cole's shirt with his good hand. "Please. Please. I won't do it again. I'm sorry—"

"Dani," and god, why couldn't Cole come up with anything _useful_ to say?

"Just don't leave me here," Dani choked out. "I'll—I'll hold still, I won't make any noise. Anything, anything. Just don't—"

Jesus. Oh, jesus.

Cole felt abruptly sick. He hadn't before, shooting half a dozen men dead in a row; but he did now. His face felt cold, his gut rolled.

He sucked in a sharp breath, made himself let it out slow. He had to—he had to keep his head on straight. He had to keep Dani calm, and clean him up, and bandage what he could. He didn't have time to waste getting pissed off at Karl motherfucking Servigo.

But he spared half a second to hope that whatever it was Armor O'Malley had done to Karl before bagging him up in burlap and dumping him at Guzman's beach house, it had made the motherfucker scream.

"I won't," he said aloud, and he tried to keep it even, steady, and was pretty sure he succeeded. "Dani, I won't. Okay? I came for you, I came and got you. I'm not leaving you anywhere."

Dani blinked, once and then again, looking dazed. Like that was the first thing that had confused him, the first thing he hadn't understood—not being beaten, not being whipped, not being carried apparently-he-hadn't-known-where; but being told that it was all right, and that nobody was going to punish him for—jesus, for fucking _falling_. For making a mistake.

"I," he said, uncertain. "Cole?"

"Yeah," Cole said gently. "Yeah, that's me."

Dani let his eyes fall shut, and his mouth twisted a little. "I don't know what I'd do," he said. "If you were mad at me, I—"

"Well," Cole said, striving not to lose that easy level tone, "last time that happened, I shot you. Still turned out okay in the end."

"Yeah," Dani agreed unsteadily. "But you didn't mean it. Not really. I don't know what I'd do if you meant it."

Cole realized, belated, that he'd reached out without knowing it, that he'd tried reflexively to comfort Dani with a hand against his shoulder, thumb following the curve of his throat. And Dani—Dani turned his face into Cole's forearm, his wrist; eyes still closed, blindly seeking, even though it had to hurt like hell.

He was out of his head. He was in pain, and afraid, and disoriented, halfway to incoherent. It didn't mean anything, and Cole couldn't afford to kid himself into thinking it did.

Cole swallowed, and let go, and went to yank the first aid kit open. "Just—hold still," he said, very low. "Hold still, all right?" and he reached for some gauze, to start wiping the blood off Dani's face.

* * *

They made it back to the bungalow in one piece. Had to take a break halfway there so Henrique didn't pass out—but by then Dani was cleaned up enough that Cole could bear to leave the Jeep's back seat for five minutes at a time, and out cold besides.

Henrique hadn't been beaten as hard or as recently as Dani, and none of his bones had been broken, either. But he was still in pretty rough shape, and it couldn't be called a surprise that they had to pull over so he could put his head between his knees, breathe deep and drink some water and gnaw on a spare energy bar for a little while.

After that, he looked less like shit. Which was good, because Cole was only managing to feel a bare minimum of guilt for leaving him to fend for himself while Dani had been bleeding all over the back seat; it was nice to think the kid hadn't actually been fucked up bad enough to need his help instead.

Cole delivered him to a relieved Ana, and he must have done something, said something, nodded or waved to her, but it was like somebody else was doing it, somewhere really far away from him.

And then he took Dani home.

By the time they arrived, Dani was lying there limp, slack, sweating—the only motion in him was his chest, quick sharp breaths gasping their way in, and his eyes, shifting restlessly under closed lids. When Cole touched him, he flinched, curling in on himself, and then said something too quiet to hear.

"Hey, it's me," Cole said. "Come on, Dani, it's just me."

"—sorry. Please, please—"

Cole squeezed his eyes shut and bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. He didn't want to be angry when he was touching Dani. It didn't seem right. But it was hard not to be, listening to Dani say things like that—having a pretty good guess why he seemed to think he had to.

"I know," Cole said aloud, when he could. "I know you're sorry. You don't need to be. It's okay."

He got Dani in the bungalow the same way he'd gotten Dani to the Jeep: Dani's good arm around his neck, Dani's face tucked in against his shoulder; Dani's bad arm cradled against Dani's chest, and Cole's other arm hooked under Dani's knees.

The one thing they'd really splurged on was decent mattresses for both beds. The bigger one was Cole's, he'd called dibs—but he settled Dani on it now without thinking twice about it, because it was closer to both the bathroom and the kitchen.

There was no way he could take Dani to the hospital. Dani's face had been on a lot of posters around these parts for a long, long time; and even if by some miracle nobody called the police on them, that still left a lot of people who had had a bone to pick with Karl Servigo, and would settle for his brother if they had to.

So it was going to be up to Cole. He had to set that arm, splint it, and clean Dani's wounds for real, not just the best he could while they were bouncing around in the back of a Jeep, fleeing from drug runners.

Dani would be okay. He had to be. Because Cole wouldn't be able to fucking bear it if he wasn't.

* * *

Everything hurt.

Everything hurt a _lot_.

Dani made a noise through his teeth, and that hurt, too. His throat, it was—it felt raw, sore. His jaw, the muscles, they ached, and his mouth was hot and stinging. His whole face, his head, throbbed. His arm—

He didn't want to think about his arm. And he really, really, really didn't want to think about his feet.

Someone touched him. It hurt, but only a little. It should have hurt more, he thought dimly, but they were careful; their grip was firm, steady, not shaking him or jerking him around, and their hands were gentle.

"This is going to hurt," Cole said.

Oh, Dani thought. It was Cole.

It was Cole. That was all right. He breathed out, slow, grateful. And—it was going to hurt, Cole had said.

Well, of course it was going to hurt. He'd made a mistake, a stupid mistake that had gotten him caught. He should have known better. Obviously Cole was going to have to teach him a lesson.

That was all right. That was how this had worked for as long as Dani could remember. It was almost nice, in a way. It meant Cole wanted to make sure Dani was going to do better next time, and that meant Cole cared about him.

It would be good to have the reminder to look back on, once Cole went home to New York. Cole was going to leave him behind, sooner or later; but Cole had cared about him, too, at least for a while.

Cole's grip tightened a little, on Dani's arm—the one Dani wasn't thinking about.

And then Cole pulled.

Dani remembered, hazily, promising not to move, promising not to make a sound. That he'd take what was coming to him for making such a stupid mistake—that he understood it was his own fault.

But _fuck_ , holy fucking shit, that hurt. Dani screamed behind his clenched teeth and couldn't stop it, felt his eyes well up wet and hot and then spill over.

Then again, Cole probably wouldn't be surprised Dani had broken his word. He already knew Dani was a liar.

Everything faded out a little bit. Dani was almost looking forward to going under—but no, not this time. He gasped, once, twice, and shivered a little all over, and somewhere not too far away, someone was saying, "Sorry. That's it, I promise. That was the worst part. I'm sorry."

Dani blinked. What?

"Dani. Dani?"

"What?" Dani croaked.

Cole's face swam out of the haze. He looked soft-edged but serious, dark eyes intent. "Hey," he said quietly, and moved away, and Dani almost grabbed after him except he couldn't quite figure out how to make his arms move. But then Cole was back, and he had something cool, damp, and he was pressing it to Dani's hot aching face, and it felt _amazing_.

"The hell," Dani said.

None of this made any sense. He blinked again, rapid, and the rest of the room settled into place behind Cole. The bed, it was—this was Cole's bed. Dani was in Cole's bed, and Cole had said sorry to _him_ , had said sorry and was hardly hurting him at all, and was holding a wet cold cloth to Dani's face.

This, Dani decided, was bullshit.

He was still being beaten, and his mind had figured it might as well take a trip to someplace else. He'd passed out. He was delirious; he was dead. But there was no way this was actually happening, not to him.

Nobody stayed with him when he felt like shit, and brushed his hair carefully off his forehead. Nobody sat with him, and cleaned blood off him, and bandaged him up with fresh gauze. Nobody— _looked_ at him like that.

This was bullshit.

But, man, it was _nice_ bullshit.

Dani laughed a little, low in his aching throat, and grinned up at Cole, wide, even though it made his mouth throb and sting.

What a brain he had, huh? What a brain he had, to come up with a nice thing like this.

Cole looked kind of puzzled now, brow furrowing. "Man, I know I don't have good enough painkillers for you to be looking like that," he said. "Dani, what—"

"It's fine," Dani said breezily, and laughed again. "This is very nice bullshit. I like it."

That just made Cole frown harder.

"Stop frowning," Dani told him, and fumbled with the arm that wasn't fucked up, all the way to his head where Cole's hand was. Where Cole's hand wasn't, because this was all clearly bullshit. "I don't like it when you frown. Your smile is better."

Cole sucked in a quick confused breath, eyes briefly wide, and then cleared his throat. "Dani," he said carefully.

"So this is what it's like to be in your bed, huh?" Dani said, and didn't let go of Cole's hand. "Not as much excitement as I was expecting," he added, and then turned his face toward Cole's palm—toward the sheets, too, so his nose was pressed into them. "Smells like you, though."

"So like two and a half days of sweat without a shower," Cole muttered, "plus or minus Jeep fumes."

"Well, yeah," Dani allowed. "But I like it."

Something passed across Cole's face then, raw and uncertain. "Dani," he said quietly.

"It's not your fault," Dani said, skimming his fingertips across Cole's palm, closing his hand around Cole's. "I'll remember that, okay? It's not your fault this is bullshit. Nobody does this for me. So I won't be mad that you didn't, when I wake up. It's not your fault."

Cole's mouth pressed itself into a tight thin line. He closed his eyes, and moved his other hand, touched the backs of two fingers to Dani's jaw so gently Dani could hardly feel it.

"Jesus, Dani," he said, very softly.

"It's okay," Dani said, and turned Cole's hand in his, pressed his stinging bloody mouth to Cole's knuckles. "It's okay, I won't be mad. I love you."

He let his eyes fall shut, too. He was—he felt dizzy, which was weird because he wasn't moving. There was kind of a roaring in his ears, and if Cole was saying anything he couldn't hear it.

Well, except of course Cole wasn't saying anything, because Cole wasn't here at all: that was the last thing he thought, and then he slipped under, and it was for real this time.

He stayed down there for a while.

He came up for air, now and then. Sometimes he was too hot, sweating, aching and helpless—and then there would be Cole, and wet cloths wiping him down, and he'd want to stay but he couldn't hang on, would slide back down into the quiet and bring the bullshit to an end too soon. Sometimes he was too cold, shivering in the dark, every muscle in his body strung tight; and then Cole would move beside him, make a soft curious half-asleep sound and turn into him, curl a warm strong arm around him.

That was bullshit, too, obviously.

 _You been in jail too long, man. I don't want you sleeping behind me_ —

Just a joke. But Dani knew better than to fail to pay attention to jokes. Karl had always given his warnings with a smile. That was what Dani had decided kindness was, a long long time ago: giving warnings at all. Smiling when you did.

Cole wasn't very much like Karl, in a lot of ways. But surely some of the rules were the same.

Sometimes Cole talked to him. Sometimes Dani could understand it, and sometimes he couldn't; sometimes he just lay there and the words washed over him, and Cole never seemed to mind that he wasn't listening.

He couldn't move his feet. Which was fine, because he didn't want to. They hurt. They hurt so much he cried, when he couldn't stop himself, when he was too tired not to. He tried to keep quiet about it, but Cole always noticed anyway. Noticed, and wiped his face, touched his hair, brought him pills and water and then it hurt a little less.

Which didn't make very much sense, but that was okay. Dani felt dimly aware that he was—that he had a fever or something, that he was delirious. Things were allowed to not make sense.

He slept. He woke. He slept again. Sometimes Cole made him eat, thin soup he could keep down, or drink more and more water. Sometimes he had to piss, and then Cole—Cole _carried_ him, which was the most amazing bullshit of all.

It felt like a day or two. It felt like forever.

And then, finally, the fever broke.

Dani woke up. And this time he was pretty sure it was for real.

His head ached, but it felt clear for the first time since—well, since that one guy had cracked the back of it into the floor, and everything had gone pulsing and blurry. He was going to be able to actually stay awake for a while, maybe. He could even hold onto a thought for longer than two seconds at a time.

He laughed at himself a little, huffed a breath through his nose, and then closed his eyes and opened them, just to prove he wasn't going to sink back under when he did.

He felt stiff, and sore, and his feet hurt with a sharp, deep pain that felt like it went to the bone, totally different from his bruised face, his broken arm. But it wasn't so much he couldn't breathe through it or think around it, which was a nice change.

He wet his lips—carefully, slowly, and they were sore but he didn't taste blood. And then he took a second to actually look around.

In front of him was most of the bungalow. The bungalow in the morning, judging by the angle of the light, the way it was slanting in low and golden, the direction it was coming in through the windows. The sheets were bright with it: white and clean, even though Dani could remember sweating, bleeding, all over them.

It was quiet, mostly. There were birds out there somewhere, birds and a monkey in the distance, making that Tarzan movie noise Cole had gotten all nervous about back in the—

Cole.

Dani went still.

He hadn't noticed until right then; it seemed stupid, but it was true. He'd been taking stock of himself a bit at a time, all his individual parts and the different ways they hurt.

But there was also—there was an arm slung over his waist, a hand relaxed and half-curled in the middle of his chest. There was pressure here and there against his back: one shoulder blade, the back of one thigh, something crossing beneath his ankles. And everywhere he wasn't being touched outright, there was the ghost of warmth, hot close air trapped by hardly any distance at all.

It was Cole.

Dani sucked in a startled breath, couldn't stop it, and Cole murmured something Dani couldn't understand and shifted against him.

Cole had been here. He remembered that. But he also remembered it had been bullshit—he'd known even then, looking up into Cole's face, that he was going to wake up sooner or later, and when he did he was going to be alone.

But he wasn't.

He closed his eyes. So he was in Cole's bed after all—fine. That made sense: it was the closer one to the door. Obviously Cole hadn't wanted to carry Dani further than he absolutely needed to. That was all.

No bullshit required.

Dani realized too late that he'd tensed up a little; he was okay, his arm was all bound up in a sling, he hadn't screwed anything up. But Cole had obviously felt it, because he shifted again and said, "Mm?" like it was a question, and then moved—took back his stupid warm arm, which was fine, and Dani rolled onto his back and watched Cole rub his eyes.

Next he would get up, Dani thought. He would move away and get up, and tell Dani what a motherfucking idiot he was for getting himself in so much trouble, for making it so Cole had to come get him.

Dani didn't even have the location of the boat this time around. He didn't even have anything Cole wanted, to make up for it.

Cole stretched, and made an indistinct noise in his throat, and blinked, and looked at Dani. He didn't get up.

"Fucking finally," he said, but he didn't sound angry. He reached over, and Dani braced himself, and then Cole's hand was—was just curving over his forehead. "There was some crap in one of your feet, I missed it the first time when we were in the car. I thought I was going to have to steal some antibiotics or something before you'd kick that fucking infection."

"You could always have cut my foot off," Dani said.

Cole gave him a strange, steady look. "Yeah, no," he said, after a moment.

Dani swallowed.

This was it, surely. It had to be.

Cole had stuck it out so much longer than Dani had been expecting. Dani had tried hard to do all the right things, to make it last as long as he could. Because Cole was going to go back to New York sooner or later, and there was no way in hell he was going to take Dani with him unless it was in cuffs—and he had plenty of reasons to do it already, but at least Dani could be careful not to give him any new ones.

Except this time, at last, undeniably, Dani had fucked up. And Dani's mistakes never went unpunished.

He'd do better. He would. As long as Cole gave him a chance. As long as Cole picked something other than leaving—anything, anything at all, anything Cole needed to do to feel like the point had been made, as long as it wasn't—

"Dani," Cole said quietly.

Dani closed his eyes. "Sorry," he said.

"Yeah," Cole said, after a moment. "You been saying that a lot, man." He paused; Dani lay still with his eyes shut and listened to the quiet. "Said a couple other things, too. I hate to have to tell you this, but if your brother weren't dead already, I'd punch him in the face."

Dani blinked.

"Like, a lot," Cole clarified. "A whole bunch of times. He'd end up looking like—" He stopped, and made a considering face, and then reached out and ran a gentle fingertip along Dani's cheekbone where Dani could feel it was hot and swollen, bruised.

Dani stared at him.

"Well. Kind of like you do right now, I guess. They really worked you over, huh?"

"Cole," Dani said blankly.

Cole raised both his eyebrows, and didn't pull his hand away. "Yeah, that's me," he said. "What's up?"

"You don't understand. You don't—"

"Yeah?" Cole tilted his head a little. "Well, let's see about that, huh? Because I think I understand pretty good. I think I got basically the whole picture, here. I think you're right back on this thing where you think I'm going to fuck you up or something because you screwed up, even though I've already told you like ten times that that's never going to happen. Which I figure means that somebody else must've told you eleven times that they were going to beat your ass, so apparently I got a little more work to do."

Dani swallowed.

"You also told me," Cole added after a beat, "that you weren't going to hold it against me that I couldn't be bothered to take care of you when you had a broken arm and couldn't walk, while I was sitting right there putting a cold washcloth all over your sweaty face. So either you had absolutely no idea what the fuck was going on, or you did but you thought you were hallucinating it."

Dani went hot, and then cold, and then hot again.

He remembered that. He remembered saying that. And the next thing he'd said had been—

Cole cleared his throat. "I mean, you were totally out of it," he said, kind of quickly. "So it's fine. My point is, wherever you got this complex about how I'm some kind of heartless asshole, I'm not into it. My bedside manner is to _die_ for, man, and I want credit where credit is due. You get me?"

Dani looked at him.

"You can trust me," Cole said, very low. "We're partners. A team, right? The best. I'm not going to fuck you up or leave you to die or whatever."

Dani thought about that, and bit the inside of his cheek, and drew a slow breath. "The thing is," he said unsteadily, "I remember that. I remember you. It—it didn't make sense to me, but it's not like I thought I was talking to a pink elephant, okay. So—" He wavered. He was—he couldn't look at Cole anymore.

But he'd said this once already, apparently, and Cole was still here. And maybe Cole didn't want to hear it again, but even if he didn't, it would be okay.

_You can trust me._

It would be okay, Dani thought. And Cole should know. Cole should know that part hadn't been bullshit.

"So—anything I said to you, while I was—I meant it. I knew it was you. I meant it."

Silence. Dani's heart pounded.

"Yeah?" Cole said, hardly more than a whisper, from a lot closer than Dani had expected; and before Dani could even say it back, agree, nod, Cole was—they were kissing.

Barely at all, at first. Just the lightest touch of Cole's mouth. Because Dani's mouth was a fucking mess, and Cole was—Cole was taking care of him.

Dani squeezed his stinging eyes shut, and kissed back.

It hurt a little bit. Of course it did. He couldn't do half of what he wanted to, like this, with his broken arm bundled up immobile in between them; he only had one hand to grip Cole's shoulder, the nape of his neck, and only one thumb to slide along the uneven stubble at Cole's jaw.

But Cole was keeping it slow anyway, long careful touches of his lips, breaking away and coming back—sinking his fingertips into Dani's hair, running his thumbs along Dani's split-open brow and bruised cheek.

"Jesus," he said at last, soft, against the corner of Dani's mouth.

"Also," Dani murmured, "I am _definitely_ going to blow you this time."

Cole lifted his head, and laughed.

"You don't even have to pretend to be asleep," Dani added, magnanimous.

"I appreciate that, man," Cole said. "I really do." And then he paused, and his whole face softened, and he touched Dani's mouth again. "But let's maybe put that on hold. You should probably have stitches in a couple of these."

"I'm fine," Dani said.

"Man, you broke your fucking arm," Cole said. "You broke your fucking _face_. I'm not sure you even know what the word 'fine' means."

Dani grinned at him—and then winced, because yeah, okay, that fucking hurt. Ow.

"I'm fine," he said again anyway, and then hesitated. "I've got you looking after me, so."

"Yeah," Cole said, "you do," and then kissed him again.


End file.
